Turkey long has been allied with the U.S., seen as a bulwark
against both the Soviet Union and radical Islam. However,
ties have been fraying in recent years for a number of
reasons. The Turkish public has turned hostile to
Washington and Americans cannot even count on the friendship of
secular nationalists.
Particularly disturbing is evidence tying the so-called "deep
state," long viewed as a threat to democratic governance,
especially by the moderately Islamic ruling party, to the 2007
murder of three Christians, a German and two Turkish
converts. The crime was grotesquely brutal and cruel, yet
public officials have seemed almost as willing to criticize the
victims as the murderers. According
to Christianity Today:
In April 2007, five young men tortured and
killed two Turkish converts and a German Christian at a
Christian publishing house in the southeastern city of Malatya.
When the resulting trial began in January 2008, the court and
the Turkish public regarded it as a straightforward case of
overzealous nationalists killing missionaries, whose activity
was widely regarded as a national threat.
But in recent months, lawyers have tied the case to a more
serious national threat. Prosecutors have expanded their
investigation beyond the five assailants to local officials.
The murders are now seen as a plot by the "deep state" group
Ergenekon, a cabal of generals, politicians, and other
prominent figures accused of trying to overthrow the
government. Ergenekon is already accused of plotting a national
coup and killing several people, including a Catholic priest.
"From the very beginning, it was clear that some other people
were involved with this, because in Turkey you cannot do
something on this scale without being noticed by state agents,"
said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, the lead prosecuting attorney for the
Malatya case. He invited lawyers from across Turkey working on
Ergenekon-linked murder cases to form "a common eye" on the
Malatya murders.
Turkish politics long has had a vicious authoritarian
edge. Be careful what you say about the military and don't
ever think about criticizing Ataturk, the founder of modern
Turkey. But aiding and abetting murder? If the
allegations are true, it turns out there isn't a lot of moral
difference between Islamic radicals and nationalist secularist
radicals in Turkey.
